


Regina At Kingscote.

by Jackmerlin



Category: The Marlows - Antonia Forest
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 14:29:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12301053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackmerlin/pseuds/Jackmerlin
Summary: Entirely inspired by Nnozomi and belonging to the universe of 'First-borns'.





	1. First Day.

She introduced herself as Reggie on the train and in the common room that first night. It was the following morning in the form room, their first full day at school, that she started to get anxious, as the teacher read their names from the electronic register.  
She slid her hand into her pocket, to feel her good-luck charm - a vintage pen knife with six blades that folded into a pearl handle. Found at a carboot sale during the summer, she’d asked if she could have it as her going away present. “Wouldn’t you rather have your phone upgraded?” Dad had asked, but she didn’t suppose they’d be allowed to use their phones much at school anyway.  
Here it was; the middle of the register. ‘Regina Merrick.’  
“Here, Miss,” Several of the girls nearest her rolled their eyes in her direction. _Regina_ , repeated a mocking voice somewhere near the back, swiftly silenced by the teacher’s raised eyebrow.  
She understood sometimes why Dad ran away from people, but Mum’s way was usually better. So at break-time she squared her shoulders, raised her chin and met her attackers head on.  
“Is your name really _Regina_?”  
“It is. What of it?”  
“Regina.” A sneering voice tried it out.  
“At least it’s different,” said a friendly girl with spiky hair and hazel eyes. “Not like an Emily or Olivia.”  
The sneering girl, one of two Olivias in the class, looked put out.  
“It means ‘queen’,” offered Reggie. “I was named after a falcon.”  
“A _what?_ ”  
“A peregrine falcon actually. The fastest bird on earth.”  
“Oh right.” The girls wavered, undecided as to whether that was cool or just weird.  
Reggie, feeling their opinion of her tilting on a knife edge, decided to press on confidently. “Mum and Dad had the name all saved up for a girl for ages, only they kept having boys. So it was lucky I came along in the end.” Glancing around to make sure no teachers were in view she pulled her phone out and scrolled through to find a photo. “That’s all of us.”  
“Wow, _how_ many brothers have you got?”  
“There’s six of them.” She tapped the next photo, a selfie taken with her favourite brother. “This is Horri.” He’d point blank refused to answer to the other thing this last summer.  
They were a good looking lot, as far as brothers went, and she was aware of approval swinging her way.  
Olivia said in a self- important way that she was going to check out the Games noticeboard; no-one went with her.  
Nikki, who had sat beside Reggie at breakfast, gave her a welcoming nudge. “Don’t mind Olivia. She thought she ruled the school when we were all in Juniors, but no-one likes her very much.”  
“I’m Jasmine,” said the hazel-eyed girl. “But my friends all call me Jim.”


	2. All This.

Miss Stranger gave a particularly vindictive blast on her whistle. She waved Reggie off the netball court. “Bethan,can you swap with Regina while she goes and thinks about the actual _rules_ of the game.”  
“She doesn’t like you, does she?” observed Jim, as Reggie slumped down beside her on the Sub’s bench. “What did you do - run with the ball again?”  
Jim showed so little enthusiasm for games that even Miss Stranger had given up trying to make her exert herself. She was surreptitiously looking at her phone under cover of the Games hoodie bundled up on her lap.  
“It’s a stupid game,” complained Reggie sulkily.  
“Regina Merrick, I’m shocked at you! What _would_ your mother say?”  
Reggie flushed. She had come to regret saying, in the first week of term, that her mother had once been Games Captain of the school. At the time, the sight of the name Nicola Marlow, carved into the wooden lists in the entrance hall, had filled Reggie with such a conflicted surge of pride and homesickness that she had unwisely boasted about it to Jim.  
“Didn’t your mum teach you how to play?” Jim asked. “Get you primed to follow in her footsteps?”  
“Not really. I just used to mess around with my brothers. I can play all the _boys’_ games.” Mum had never had _time_. She was always busy, doing several things at once, out on the estate, in the office, doing things with the boys. It was one of the reasons that Reggie had decided she might as well be at boarding school. And Dad was useless; he could only ever focus on one of them at a time, and you never knew when it was going to be your turn.  
“Is this your place?” asked Jim, who had been browsing on her phone as they spoke, and now showed Reggie a website she’d found.  
Mariot Chase Falconry Experiences. Jon seemed to have improved the website since she’d last looked. Some of the best quotes from TripAdvisor reviews faded in and out of view under a close-up portrait of one of the goshawks. _‘.. authentic English eccentric shares his passion for these beautiful birds….’_ (“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dad had asked, choosing to ignore the suppressed snorts coming from his younger children, when Jon read that particular one. “That was the American couple - it means you were horribly rude to them all day but they chose to find it amusing,” said Mum.) Jon had put the prices up too; £60 for a half-day, £120 for a full day.  
“What do they get for that?” asked Jim.  
“They get to trail round after Dad with a hawk on their fist,” Reggie told her. She privately thought it rather clever of Mum, to actually have people _paying_ for the privilege of carrying Dad’s hawks around.  
“And what do all your brothers do?”  
“Jon’s gone home to help run everything. Anthony’s working in a racing yard. The others are still at school; Nicholas and Horri do Sea Cadets. And they all play cricket and football and rugby.”  
Jim said thoughtfully, “We do cricket here in the summer. But maybe you should join the Wade Rosebuds for the winter.”  
“The what?”  
“The girls’ rugby team.”  
“Oh. But that’s not a school thing.”  
“They take all the ballet dancers out to the Conservatoire on Saturdays, and the riders go to the stables, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t. And you know what, the Rosebuds train up here in the winter anyway.”  
“But that’s out of bounds.” Kingscote had invested in a state-of-the-art, flood-lit, all-weather training facility for sports, which was hired out in the evenings to local clubs. The girls were forbidden to go near it at those times; officially, for health and safety reasons, unofficially - Jim said - to stop the girls ogling any of the boys.  
“It would be worth asking. Bet if _you_ did, some of the others would too.”  
“Really?”  
“Yes, of course. Haven’t you noticed? And no-one much likes Miss Stranger. You go show her what you think of _her_ and her little games.”  
Reggie considered. “I do need _something_ to be good at this term.” She wasn’t entirely bad at lessons, and she hadn’t been in any trouble, but neither had she been brilliant in a play, or been picked for teams, or done anything special at all. Not like her many aunts who had all been famous at school - and thank goodness she hadn’t mentioned _them_ to Jim or the others.  
The whistle shrilled again. “Madison, swap with Nikki!”  
Nikki came hobbling over to join them. “Did you _see_ that?” They hadn’t. “Olivia tripped me! On purpose! Right in front of Miss Stranger and she didn’t even notice! Or she pretended not to, anyway.” She sat down and inspected her bloodied knee.  
“You’d better take up rugby with Reggie,” Jim told her, as if it was a decided thing.  
“ _Me?_ I’ve just got lamed for life playing netball! I’m hardly going to survive in a game of rugby,” objected Nikki.  
Nikki played the drama queen, but she was tougher than she pretended to be, thought Reggie. And she was quick. “You _should_ come. You’d be good,” Reggie told her.  
“I wouldn’t like being squished. I like my nose and ears the way they are, thanks.”  
“Can’t think why,” remarked Jim.  
Nikki, generally considered by the others to be the prettiest girl in their class, let the catty remark pass with no more than a token ‘Oy!’ and a friendly punch to Jim’s arm. “What’s that?” she asked, peering at Jim’s phone.  
“Reggie’s place. You never said you had all this! _‘The main building dates back to the Elizabethan period’_ ” she read. “ _‘Explore our genuine priest’s hole….’_ ”  
“A priest’s _hole?_ ”  
“It’s a hiding place,” explained Reggie hastily, but too late; the other two were already giggling.  
“ _‘...The most highly decorated Catholic chapel to be found in a private house ..’_   Hey, does that mean you’re Catholic? You never said.”  
“Sort of.”  
“What does that mean?”  
She didn’t really want to explain. Yes, of course she’d been baptised, done her First Holy Communion, went to Mass every Sunday at home. But she spent the long yawn of Mass waiting for the slow minutes to be over, so that she could return to her pony, or her book, or music, or letting the boys practise bowling cricket balls at her.  
“Shouldn’t you be at St Bernadette’s?” Jim named a convent school that Kingscote often played against at netball.  
Reggie gave them a plain version of the truth; that when she’d asked for Kingscote Dad had suddenly and unexpectedly become an ally. Being at Catholic school had never done _him_ the least bit of good, he said, with a quick remembering grimace. Dad told her that - just as Grandpa had said to him once - he didn’t expect her to go on with it just because he did. Not that he wouldn’t rather she did, of course, but if she was starting to feel otherwise about it, then having it rammed down her neck at school wasn’t going to help.

That was the thing with Dad. Most of the time he hardly seemed to know she was there. But just occasionally he could say something that was so understanding that she realised all over again how much she loved him.


	3. Half-Term.

Reggie slung her overnight bag over her shoulder and walked down the line of cars parked along the length of the Kingscote driveway, searching. At the furthest end, she found the battered old estate car, and with a surprised burst of pleasure, saw that it was Jon waiting in the driver’s seat. He was on his phone, so she opened the door quietly, sliding her bag on to the back seat next to the hawk carrying basket, from which came a faint feathery stirring.  
He looked different, she realised, as he put the phone away and turned to greet her. His longish flop of straight golden-brown hair was pulled back off his face.  
“Is that a man-bun?” she asked, eyeing it dubiously.  
“What do you think?” he asked, grinning. Jon wasn’t obviously good-looking; at least, not to her sisterly eye, but she was aware that were plenty of girls around who did seem to find him irresistible. His face was far more interesting than her own, she thought, noticing the short and carefully shaped beard that was new around the lines of his jaw.  
“Why is it you?” she asked instead of answering, not at all sure if she approved.  
“‘How lovely to see you, what a nice surprise,’ is what I think you _meant_ to say there,” he said, gently teasing. “I had to go and fetch madam from the vets, so Mum thought I might as well come the scenic route on the way back and fetch you too.”  
“Who’s been to the vets?” she asked. She knew he meant the specialist raptor vet in Gloucestershire, not their local farm or equestrian vet.  
“Elsa. She went straight into a wire fence after a rabbit and injured her wing.”  
“Poor Elsa.” She didn’t usually have much affection for the goshawk, who was too fierce and temperamental to be truly likeable, but she remembered her own broken arm - the result of falling off one of Antony’s horrible ponies - and felt a pang of sympathy.  
“So how’s it been?” he asked, as they pulled out onto the Wade Abbas bypass. “Mum was very mystified by a letter asking her to sign some form to let you play rugby. Has the dear old school gone co-ed?”  
“Of _course_ not. And it’s not _for_ school - I explained all that.”  
“Explained in actual words? In a letter?”  
“Well, I sent her a text. I’m sure it was perfectly clear.”  
He gave her a slightly sceptical look, and she grinned sheepishly.  
“There’s work tomorrow,” he said. “Waitress or kitchen porter? The agency can’t get us enough staff; it’s a big do.”  
So it was another wedding day, she thought, her spirits sinking. Weddings were one of their main sources of income, and it was a rare Saturday that there wasn’t one. It had been foolish of her to hope that this week-end might have been different; but there was always something of a holiday atmosphere about the house when they had it to themselves - when Mum wasn’t rushing round organising things and they could all be as loud and silly as they wanted.  
“You’ll get paid,” said Jon consolingly, seeing her face. “And I should think they’ll tip well.”  
Having some money would be good. She always had less to spend on Shopping Saturdays than Nikki or Jim. But she gloomed on, feeling unreasonably sulky. They’d be eating wedding leftover food all weekend for another thing, whereas Nikki got taken out to Nando’s when she went home for half-term, and Jim’s parents let her choose whatever takeaway she wanted, (‘Pizza. It’s always pizza,’).  
“We can go out somewhere on Sunday if you like,” offered Jon. “We could go and see a film?”  
“Just us?” She didn’t want to tag along with him and one of his girlfriends, as had occasionally happened in the past.  
“Unless any of the others want to come. There’s an anime festival on at the Art House, if you fancy it?”  
“Oh, yes!” None of the others would want to come to that, except possibly Horri, and that would be fine with her. Feeling much more cheerful, she spent the rest of the drive home telling Jon about the horrors of PE teachers, and the relative pleasures of Art and History.

  
XXX

  
Horri, doubtful about their choice of film, had wavered over coming with them. On the one hand, if he stayed at home he would probably be stuck helping move tables in the ballroom, or dragged out to help with the horses; on the other hand, Jon was usually pretty good at treating them when he took them out, and in this Horri was proved right. After the film, Jon took them to the coffee shop and bought them triple choc-nut-caramel mochaccinos.  
When the barista asked for their names to write on the cups, both Reggie and Horri gave their ‘coffee-shop names’ - their fake names that they used to avoid funny expressions or complications with spelling. Horri called himself Jack, and Reggie said she was Ann, which was after all her real middle name.  
In deference to Jon, they sipped at the hot, sweet drinks in a sensible fashion, resisting the urge to flick foam at each other off their straws. They had been to see a film called ‘Wolf Children’ and Reggie, mulling it over, asked Jon, “If _you_ had to be a wolf _or_ a person, which would you choose?”  
“Oh, a person. Definitely. I like all my home comforts too much.”  
“Me too,” she said, thinking about all the fun bits of school. “Although there’s times when I wouldn’t _mind_ being a wolf - I wouldn’t have to be a waitress if I had four legs and a shaggy coat and bit anyone who annoyed me.”  
“Dad would definitely be a wolf,” observed Horri.”He’d love being out in the woods all day with no people around.”  
“Except he’d turn up at the back door every day wanting his dinner,” said Reggie.  
“Mum would have to be a person,” added Jon, amused. “Which ought to make all of us were-wolves. What about you, Horri?”  
Horri paused, undecided. As the youngest of the six boys, he had learned not to just blurt out whatever he was thinking. He was too used to being squashed, not just metaphorically, but also physically. It didn’t help that he didn’t have much interest in the family pursuits of riding or falconry, and although he played most sports competently enough to avoid teasing at school, he didn’t have the consuming enthusiasm for any of them that his brothers had. He’d joined Sea Cadets along with Nicholas, in a fit of enthusiasm after having read his way through his mother’s set of Hornblower books and temporarily imagining himself as an adventurous sea-going type, only to find that the reality was somewhat different. He’d decided he would have to stick to it for a respectable length of time, but he couldn’t honestly pretend to enjoy it all that much. If only he could just have a bit of space sometimes …..  
”It would be good to be a wolf,” he acknowledged. “But there’d be stuff I’d miss too.”  
“Like what?” asked Jon.  
Horri hesitated. Jon, being a grown-up now, and Reggie, a year younger and a girl, were usually safe people to confide it; but he didn’t want his private bubble of pleasure pricked. “Just stuff I like doing. Some school things.”  
“What are you so pleased about?” asked Reggie.  
“Nothing.”  
“Yes, you are. I just saw you trying not to smile.”  
“It won’t seem like anything to you.”  
“Try me,” she demanded.  
“Well, it’s just, before half-term, Mr Cowell ....” He glanced quickly at Jon to see if Jon knew who he meant, and Jon, remembering his old maths teacher, gave a quick grimace. “He said I should start sitting in on the Additional Maths classes - if I wanted, that is.”  
Reggie, mouth half open to ask why on earth _anyone_ would want to do extra _Maths_ , felt a quick nudge in her side from Jon’s elbow. She said meekly instead, “What does that mean?”  
“It’s an after-school class for people who might be doing Maths for A-level. But it’s not like normal lessons …”  
Horri, seeing Reggie’s face, trailed off. Jon said quickly, “But isn’t that for the older years? At least, it was in my day - not that Mr Cowell would ever have wanted _me_ to do it.”  
“It’s mostly Year 11s,” Horri admitted. “He said - he said I might as well go along now though. No point waiting, when I can do everything already …”He broke off, blushing.  
“I always suspected you were a secret genius,” said Jon. “That’s got to be worth another drink - although maybe I _shouldn’t_ take you back too hyped up on caffeine and sugar .... “  
“You’d already offered!” Reggie protested, before he could back out. Shaking his head in a resigned way, Jon ordered three more drinks.  
“If you actually _like_ maths, you should help Mum with the accounts,” Reggie told Horri. “It always puts her in a foul mood.”  
“That,” said Jon, “is because it’s a damn near thing sometimes making the incomings match the outgoings.” He looked pointedly at Reggie. “Which is why we _need_ the weddings, and the harris hawks -”  
“I _like_ the harris hawks,” she said indignantly. The harris hawks were kept for the paying guests to fly. Dad referred to them disparagingly as being like ‘labradors with wings’ to which his children invariably replied, what was wrong with _that_ \- they _liked_ labradors.  
“And everything else,” Jon carried on. “I’m thinking Harry Potter themed parties for kids next.”  
“How?”  
“I’m hoping I can get an owl to start with …”  
“Oh, Jon, yes!”  
He grinned, pleased with their reaction. “If the very nice woman at the bank will agree to another loan, I was thinking some sort of adventure playground in the barn …”  
Before they finished their drinks, Reggie squeezed between Jon and Horri to take a selfie. Horri, who hated having his picture taken, made a face. ‘My two fave bros,’ she captioned it, before posting it on Instagram.  
“So what about you, Reggie,” asked Jon. “What are you going to be famous for at that school of yours?”  
Reggie shrugged. Jon had so much energy, and could make things happen. Horri was clever. All the others had things they were good at; Anthony riding and horses, Ed and Lawrence playing cricket for the County Under 16s, and Nicholas just seemed to be good at _everything_. She had no idea yet what her thing was going to be, or even if there was anything she _could_ be good at.  
“I dunno.”  
Jon said kindly, “We’ll just have to wait and see then, won’t we?”


	4. Sunday at School.

She felt the suck and stumble of the rough pitch, pitted and poached from many games played in bad weather. The ball, mis-passed, spun low in front of her knees; hopelessly stooping, she found by some miracle she’d caught it, and ran, staggering as she straightened and then fast and free as she gained her balance. Two defenders loomed, the nearest a big girl but slow. Reggie ran deceptively towards her, as if going straight into her arms, saw her brace, lower, commit to the tackle - and at the last moment she jinked and the girl tackled empty air. But there were others, quicker. Reggie felt the thudding feet close behind her, the sound of their breathing, could almost feel their stretching arms; but the winger was running up her outside, calling, and as hands grabbed at her shirt, she passed, clean and accurate, chest-height, and the winger catching it neatly, ran on and scored the try.

 

“I take it you won?” Jim asked, glancing at her face.  
Reggie tried to say yes as casually as she could; she was aware that her face was glowing, and not just from the combined effects of the morning’s rain and mud, or the uncertain temperature of the school changing-room showers.  
“Well, _I’ve_ had the most boring morning,” Jim said plaintively. “You _both_ went off and left me ….” Nikki, who could sing, had gone with the school choir to a music competition.  
“It took me ages to find you,” said Reggie, with mild exaggeration. She had looked first in the Theatre, before tracking Jim down in the Art Room. “I thought you were painting sets today.”  
“So did I,” answered Jim gloomily. In their last art lesson, when they’d been set the task of designing a stage set for the production of ‘A Christmas Carol’ that the school was putting on at end of term, Miss Jennings had enthused over Jim’s steampunk inspired design and invited her to join the backstage team.  
“They’ve already got an old street scene that they’ve had practically forever, probably since your mum was here, I shouldn’t wonder. And all those snotty Upper Fifths that do Drama, some of them are doing all the lighting and special effects, and they weren’t letting me near it. So there wasn’t anything for me to do,” Jim explained.  
“So what’s this?” Reggie asked, peering at Jim’s sketches.  
“Jenners said I could have a go at the cover for the programme. But anyone who wants to can enter a design, and they’re going to pick the best, so it’s probably not much use.”  
“I don’t see why not,” said Reggie. Jim could draw, and paint, better than anyone in their class.  
They had the Art Room almost to themselves; apart from a couple of prefects frowning over their course work at the far end of the room.  
“Where’s old Jenners?” asked Reggie.  
“Nipped out for a fag, I should think,” said Jim vaguely. “She was here.” The Art Room, a long, low, well-lit annexe to the New Block (still called the New Block by tradition, even though only the Sixth Formers at the far end of the room could remember it actually being new, back when they were in Juniors) had a wall made up of large windows looking out onto a view of green lawn and trees in the distance. Supposedly planned to encourage calm and creative thoughts, it also meant that Miss Jennings could slip out the fire exit for a surreptitious smoke in between double lessons.  
Even those who weren’t much good at Art loved Miss Jennings and were already loudly mourning her upcoming retirement at the end of the school year. She might not always come to lessons wearing her vintage kimono rather than ordinary clothes, but she did so often enough to give her an aura of eccentricity popular with the girls.  
“Which do you think I should stick with?” asked Jim, of the four drawings spread out on the table.  
Reggie gave each of them proper consideration. Jim had drawn each of the Ghosts, including Jacob Marley’s face emerging from the door knocker.  
“I like this one best,” she decided at last, choosing the cloaked skeleton with a candy skull - the Ghost of Christmas Future.  
“Me too actually,” said Jim, pleased. She picked up her pencil, and idly doodled some more details on her gravestones. “What’s Christmas like at your place?”  
Reggie considered. Jim was insatiably curious about life at Mariot Chase, but it was often hard to describe things that she herself had taken for granted since birth. Jim let slip snippets of information about her own home life in a studiedly disinterested way, as if it was really nothing to do with her. Her parents were divorced, worked in investment banks (she had said the names of the banks casually, as if the others might have heard of them, but Reggie hadn’t) and shared Jim between them. Which meant, Jim had explained, her sitting around in one identical shiny, white apartment after another, or being dropped off at endless after-school clubs and classes. When the latest in a line of bored au-pairs had given notice and her father had suggested boarding school, she’d been secretly delighted.  
It wasn’t so very different from Reggie’s own reason for wanting to come to Kingscote, although the shiny white apartments seemed a world away from the mellow, weathered grandeur of home.  
“We sort of have two Christmases,” she explained. “Because there’s Christmas balls and office parties going on from November, there’s a massive tree in the hallway which is a real one. It has to be decorated with proper vintage decorations. And the ballroom and the public areas are covered with holly and stuff, so it all looks like a film set. But we have our own Christmassy stuff in our sitting room. We have a silver tinsel tree that we get out of the attic, and it’s like a competition every year to see who can buy the tackiest ornament to hang on it. Like Horri found a poo emoji wearing a Santa hat to hang on it last year.”  
“I like those things too,” said Jim. “Only I have to keep them in my own room. Mum’s got this stupid bronze branch thing that she hangs about two baubles on, and that’s supposed to make us feel Christmassy.”  
“Poor you.”  
“Not that it matters this year. I’ve got to spend Christmas with Dad.”  
“Oh. Is that bad?”  
Jim shrugged. “It’s alright sometimes. But he’s met this new woman and he thinks it would be _great_ for me to meet her. So guess what, he thinks we should all spend Christmas together. And just in case I didn’t think that was gruesome enough, turns out she has three children - all boys - and won’t it just be _wonderful_ for me to meet them too.”  
Jim stabbed down on her sketch pad so hard that her pencil lead broke. “Damn.”  
“Couldn’t you stay with your mum instead?” suggested Reggie.  
“I asked. She’s already booked a stupid yoga break at some retreat place in the middle of nowhere. And they don’t take kids, even if I wanted to go, which I don’t.”  
“Come home with me,” suggested Reggie. “Except then you’d have to meet six strange boys instead of three.”  
“I could cope with that - at least I wouldn’t have to watch my Dad pretending to play happy families with them.”  
“No, Uncle Giles does all that. He reckons he’s everyone’s favourite uncle.”  
“And he’s not?”  
“We - ell. It’s not that he’s horrible - he owns the farm next to ours so he comes round quite a bit and he’s alright _mostly_ \- but he tries to be cool and funny, like the way teachers do sometimes, and he’s not really, and it’s a bit cringey. He’s got his own kids but they hardly ever come….” Reggie felt a brief stab of guilty sympathy, suddenly seeing Jim’s predicament as if through the wrong end of the telescope. Giles’ two daughters lived with their mother and Step-dad for most of the year, only coming to Trennels for a few weeks in the summer holidays. Reggie, as the only girl, was invariably dispatched to play with them, something she had come to dread, as all they did was moan about how bad the wifi was at Trennels and how they wished they’d gone to Cape Verde with Mum and Tristan instead.  
“Are you two nearly done?” A polite, prefectly voice interrupted them. “Only Miss Jennings wanted me to lock up when I’d finished.” One of the Sixth Formers from the far table had materialised unseen beside them.  
“Oh yes, sure,” said Jim, sliding her pictures together hurriedly.  
“Are these yours?” asked the prefect, looking. “They’re very good.”  
“Oh, thanks,” Jim muttered carelessly, her cheeks turning treacherously pink.  
Showing no inclination to talk further, the prefect waited patiently by the door, idly jingling the keys on their keyring. Jim fumbled at a pencil that was rolling off the table, being unusually clumsy putting them away in their tin.  
Curiously Reggie looked at the prefect, a girl that she hadn’t particularly noticed before, although she’d been around in the usual way, doing dull prefect duties. She was quite pretty, she supposed, rather like one of Jon’s favourite anime characters - a face made up of finely drawn lines and angles, pale, flawless skin, silver-blonde hair cut into a choppy short bob and - she noticed suddenly as the girl glanced her way - very clear grey eyes.  
Jim, clutching sketchbook and pencil tin, nudged her. “Let’s go.”  
They both said good-bye in the standard politely shy way thaat Juniors spoke to Prefects, and left the older girl turning the key in the door.  
They walked down the corridor which was lined with displays of artwork, relics of former pupils that had been laminated and mounted on the walls to remain dustily unnoticed forever. Reggie pondered, torn between a joke or simply ignoring Jim’s embarrassment; but the middle way was simplest - “Do you like her?” she asked, as soon as they were out of earshot of the other girl.  
“Keira?” Jim didn’t pretend not to know what the question meant. But she did hesitate before answering, frowning slightly. “Yes. I - I like looking at her. I wish I could draw her.”  
“Oh yes. I can see that,” said Reggie, willing to accept the answer at face value. Jim still frowned a little though.  
“Don’t say anything, will you? Not to Nikki or anyone? I don’t want people being silly - you know?”  
“Of course not. Why would I? There’s nothing to say anyway.” To show she meant it, Reggie gave the conversation a shove in another direction. “What about Christmas then? Do you want me to text Mum and see if you can come?”  
“No, better not,” said Jim, back to her calm and lightly cynical self.”It is Christmas after all, I should probably just face it out.”


	5. Twelfth Night.

“Has someone checked the chapel door?” Mum asked, eyeing her restlessly milling boys - and one relatively patient girl. By long-standing custom, the door into the chapel was locked before the Twelfth Night party began. The origins of the tradition were lost in the mists of time as far as the children were concerned; but both their parents were very particular about it. Dad, happening to catch Reggie’s eye first , said to her, “Go along and double-check it, will you.”  
“More like triple-check,” she said, but went willingly enough. This part of the party - waiting around to greet the first arrivals - was boring anyway. The earliest guests were always either the elderly acquaintances of her grandparents, or the incomers so excited to be invited to the famous Mariot Chase party that they arrived anxiously before time.  
So she took the passages and stairs that led to the chapel at a leisurely pace, found the door already safely shut and locked - as she’d expected - and loitered back in the same unhurried fashion, wondering, not for the first time, if she looked alright and how the party would go. It was her first time of being properly at it; though it was true that in previous years she’d usually found an illicit way to stay up late and watch what went on from some hidden corner.  
Mum had rather surprisingly offered to take her into the sales in Colebridge after Christmas, and they’d found her a dress she liked in New Look. She was quite pleased with the appearance of her bottom half; her legs weren’t too bad, she thought privately, but her top half, as it appeared to her in her bedroom mirror was very dull indeed. At least being the only girl meant that she didn’t have to wear any hand-me-downs, unlike Horri who had all the others’ school uniforms and old sports kit to wear and rarely got anything new. Luckily Horri didn’t seem to care much about clothes.  
Along the last stretch of corridor before the entrance hall, she heard the overlapping murmurs of incoming conversation. The first guests had arrived and were shuffling about in uncertain polite huddles. Jon, the perfect host, guided people into the ballroom where trays of drinks and nibbles awaited.  
Reggie, not seeing anyone she knew particularly well, lurked beside one of the decorated pillars, observing what went on. It would have been nice to have invited Nikki or Jim down for the party, but Nikki was in Jamaica on holiday with her parents, and Jim’s father had got tickets to some sold-out West End show.  
In truth, it wasn’t really a party for teenagers. Her cousin Greg would come, and probably some Pony Club types that she knew slightly, but most of the guests were adult friends, neighbours and relatives of her parents - with usually at least a couple of the aunts appearing, and - since Jon had taken control of things - various trade or business types who might be useful to know. Only the older children of guests were invited too. (Jon had promised his siblings a barbeque in the summer, to be held in the barn and gardens, so the chaos could be kept safely outside.)  
Against her pillar, Reggie could observe the gently rotating groups of adults, gravitating hopefully towards the end of the room that opened into the supper room. Jon had done away with the formal dinner part of the evening, laying on a hot buffet instead and letting people sit where they liked.  
Close behind her, Reggie could hear two ladies having a simply wonderful time gossiping about the other guests, and her ears pricked when they were talking about someone she knew.  
“Is that the new Vicar? I’m surprised they’ve invited her.”  
( “Do we really _have_ to invite the Vicar to our own party?” Mum had asked at the breakfast table, prompting Ed and Lawrence to chorus Father Jack style “Well, that would be an _ecumenical_ matter.” and Nicholas to comment slyly on the apparently favourable aspects of the Rev. Ava Jackson’s countenance.)  
“Such a slip of a girl. Doesn’t look old enough, does she?”  
“That’s us showing our age. I remember when Ronnie Merrick was the age young Jon is now. He and Giles Marlow were _such_ dashing young men - Ronnie was quite the heart throb as I remember,” said the first voice. “And Giles was a lovely looking boy, wasn’t he? All gone to seed now.”  
Reggie eyed her uncle and Dad’s cousin across the room, receding hairlines, expanding waistlines and reddish complexions, trying - and failing - to imagine them both young and fit.  
The second voice wouldn’t be diverted. ”Well, she’s stirred everyone up and no mistake. It was standing room only in the church Christmas Day. Not that everyone’s so keen.The older ones won’t take to someone different..”  
“It’ll do some of them good to have their ideas shaken up … Now there’s Rowan Marlow and the Master; looks like he’s here on his own.”  
“They’re old friends of course..”  
“Friends with _benefits_ , as the youngsters say..”  
“Well, I expect he appreciates someone who can give him a good gallop….”  
“Sheila tells me that she’s absolutely terrified out hunting with those two setting the pace..”  
“Well, that’s drag-hunting for you… It’s not a coffee-house on horseback any more.”  
Her aunt Rowan trained racehorses out of the stables at Trennels. Anthony had got his start with her, before moving to a big yard in Lambourn. Famed as a tough cookie, she often led the field out hunting. The more nervous riders had given up, finding both the speed and the height of the jumps alarming.  
Reggie frowned. She was pretty sure she knew what ‘friends with benefits’ meant; but Aunt Rowan was older than Mum and Dad even; did the gossiping ladies really mean what they’d said?

 

None of the teenagers danced. They drifted together, sneering gently at the shapes their elders were throwing on the dance floor. The DJ was playing cheesy old Eighties numbers to get the older and more merry adults up dancing. Eventually however the music switched to something more up to date.  
“Who’s that Jon’s dancing with?” asked Greg admiringly. “She’s got _moo-ves!”_  
Reggie looked. Jon was dancing with Ava. “That’s the new Vicar apparently.”  
“Really? They could go on Strictly!” It was true that she could dance; she and Jon looked wonderful together. The other dancers had moved back to give them room, and when the song ended there was some jokey whooping and clapping. Reggie didn’t know if she was impressed or jealous.  
The music slowed, and as was traditional, Mum and Dad danced their one dance together. The way they danced was old-fashioned - one arm around each other’s waist and one pair of hands held. Dad seemed to hold onto Mum as if he needed her to steer him through the shoals of party people, Reggie thought. He looked rigidly only at Mum, while she glanced around, smiling and nodding at the other dancers, exchanging words with friends. A turn of the music rotated them away from Reggie’s view But then they circled back and Mum was looking full into Dad’s face and smiling easily with old affection, and Reggie, who had been watching with an odd sense of anxiety, felt foolishly relieved.

 

At length the music stopped, the lights came on and they surveyed the detritus of the party. Aunt Rowan, who no longer drank, brought her three horse lorry up to the front steps. “Sit on a straw bale,” she ordered cheerfully, herding tipsy partygoers up the ramp. “No seat belts, but wedge yourselves in.” Safer than everyone drink-driving anyway, she’d said when she’d first offered to do this, her driving a long, winding route through the night to all the tiny hamlets and farms to which it would be impossible to get a taxi.

  
The last guests gone, the family collapsed onto various chairs in the hall, the boys spreading themselves over the first few steps of the grand staircase. At least, almost all the family -  
“Where’s Jon?” asked Mum. “I haven’t seen him for ages.”  
“Last seen heading that way,” said Nicholas, jerking his thumb down the corridor behind him.  
“Oh well,” Mum shrugged wearily. “Let’s lock up. Has anyone let the dogs out?”  
But as they pulled the front door closed, there was the sound of distant voices and laughter, and a moment later Jon appeared from outside.  
“Just seeing Ava to her car,” he said breezily. His father raised an eyebrow, but Jon was happily oblivious. “She’d heard all about the famous Merrick chapel so I gave her a quick tour first.”  
He beamed at his family, ignoring his parents’ surprised faces. “It went rather well this year, I thought. None of this lot caught drunk and disorderly.”  
“Oy!” said his siblings, variously indignant. None of them or their peers considered drinking cool.  
Mum, looking round, caught Reggie yawning. “Right, bed, all of you. We’ve got Reggie’s trunk to pack for school tomorrow.”


End file.
